The power button with its blue rim hides some secrets. It is usually shining bright-blue, somewhat distracting you from your work. When the notebook is in the sleep mode, the button starts blinking at you. It seems like it’s inviting you to press it for the computer to wake up. That’s it – you can push it (or any key on the keyboard) to return to your full life from the Hibernate mode.

Let’s take a look at the devices and connectors located at the sides of the notebook:

ABS Zensation Z3 has nothing in the front, save for the closing clip:

The back panel of ABS Zensation Z3 carries I/O ports for connecting to a local network or phone line, a connector for an external monitor, a parallel port, a PortBar III connector and four USB 2.0 ports. Unfortunately, the placement of the USB ports is rather inconvenient (for example, it’s difficult to plug a USB flash drive into the Zensation Z3). Moreover, the USB ports are missing at the side panels. All “not very important” connectors are covered with a lid at the back panel.

We’ve got a standard set on the left edge: a PC Card slot, an IEEE1394 connector, an IR port, and a Kensington lock. This panel looks rather empty, I should say. At least, a couple of USB ports would liven it up somewhat, I think.

There is nothing interesting on the right side of the notebook: an optical drive, audio connectors and a power connector.

The cover of our ABS Zensation has light pipes above the basic indicators, and through these pipes the lights of the indicators come to the surface – you see them with the cover closed. Once again, this follows the overall design of the device.

Although ABS Zensaiton is equipped with a 14” matrix, has good characteristics and works up to 5 hours powered by its integrated battery, its weight doesn’t exceed 2kg, thanks to the Centrino platform. So ABS Zensation Z3 is a high-performance and truly portable computer.

The screen is visually good. The backlight lamps are very bright, but the viewing angles have some issues. Even the smallest deflection from the center of the screen makes the colors fade away. As for the integrated speakers, they are as good as any regular notebook speakers can be. But in fact they are only good for playing the standard Windows sounds.